The system will automatically send personnel to your house the moment you pull a smart meter.

If an interruption to your service were to occur, we could ping the meter to see if it answers back. It will auto generate a “lights out” and send someone to investigate.

Smart meters have the ability to be remotely turned on/off. A small icon on the display will show if the meter is open or closed. Many companies are making these and are slightly different from one brand to another. Some brands are reliable, others are cheap.

As for the old analog meters, there’s a potential strap on the back of the meter. By removing it, you could still get service but would not spin the meter. If you try this, you will eventually get caught. The company would issue an “investigate low/zero usage” ticket to have a serviceman take a look. We keep track of everyone’s usage from month to month, and the snapshot goes back years. If your usage were to suddenly stop or decrease, we send someone to investigate for tampering or to see if there’s a faulty meter.

Magnets don’t work either for the analog meters thinking it would slow the dials. I’ve seen a shit load of magnets on a meter and it didn’t do anything. For the new electric meters, I use a magnet to enter the meter into a new subset of information showing the voltage and phasing.

Don’t steal another smart meter and swap it with yours. The meter won’t work. A mismatch in the system will result in the meter not communicating properly and will send someone to investigate. Meters have ID and serial numbers, and we’re required to capture all information upon install. Not all digital meters are smart meters, too.

The dangly meter seals on your meter base are one-time use. Each color has a designated meaning, i.e. yellow, red, white, purple, green. The meter readers will report you if the seal is cut, and they’ll install their own colored seal to keep the meter base closed until personnel can investigate. The meter seals have ID numbers and are issued to the employees. We can find out who were issued any particular meter seal. They come in boxes with a chronological range of number like 160500-161000. These seals are guarded under lock and key.

What more do you want? I don’t advocate for the theft of electricity, it’s a no win situation. Besides, we’ve seen it all and have caught some cunning customers. Some were caught only because they openly bragged about what they’ve done to others at a bar to have someone who doesn’t care for them report the issue. Plus, you could easily get hurt opening the meter base. Just because your house is out of power, doesn’t mean that the meter socket is dead.

I haven’t felt the need to destroy company property either. At the moment, the smart technology is helping with reliability and quicker restoration, but the technology is still in its infancy and still has problems that need to be worked out for some utilities. However, once this is implemented, it’s not that much of a stretch to believe these companies would start throttling customers on their power consumption based on the belief of man made climate change or deny others based on their political opinions. We’re at the mercy of the investors pushing this shit.

The technology is promising, but it could easily be wielded for nefarious reasons. If the fuckery continues (the spying business), the antennas would be a vulnerability. It’ll be like shooting out the street lights near the drug house… continuously. Also, I’m sure the backup batteries could be repurposed for a better use rather than being destroyed. I’m hoping things start to get corrected, and we rightfully take back our nation before we resort to Antifa tactics.

DO NOT STEAL!!! DO NOT DESTROY EQUIPMENT!!!